Maybe he's going to start working gun shows, lobbying for marijuana decriminalization, and building floats for gay pride parades. But isn't this rather sudden?

As one Baptist preacher told me when I was doing church music in Mississippi: "Allen, I don't have anything at all against reformed whores. But maybe you should wait a few weeks before you let them lead out the choir."

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As I just commented in the above site, perhaps if you start to count the # of 'gaffes' and errors he makes over the course of the campaign - it could prove a good metric for indicating the level of his true conversion to the Libertarian Party's professed platform ... just a thought, cheers.

At least theoretically, ought they not to be at least the platform's optimal compromise? About Barry Goldwater though - he really wasn't anything close to the ultra-rightist depiction he's given today, with even Reagan being much further to the ideological right of the spectrum ... though it is a something I'd have fun with if I was running McCain's campaign, when the time is right ;)

hope that wasn't a Freudian slip and that you meant "help low wage people" ;) That WM board membership could be a very fun one indeed - one that McCain would be crazy not to capitalize on, where the liberal media's already paved the way to an easy conclusion of hypocrisy to many diehard Dems if they actually knew that about Hillary. Do you know if Obama's on any deemed oppressive capitalist company boards? Cheers, Tom

Herein lies the tragedy of third parties in America: during election season they often find themselves hijacked by someone pushing their own political agenda. At that point they become that most American of institutions: The Sorehead Party.

The Dallas Morning News quotes his campaign manager, Russ Verney, talking about Libertarians. "They want to continue having their debates over esoteric issues," says Verney, "They're for absolutely no taxes, absolutely no government. Bob Barr believes government is too big and wants to lower taxes. But to believe there should be no government is irresponsible."

Tom,The reason I deleted it was because I had typed "HELL low wage people", instead of "help". To whom do poor people owe the biggest debt of gratitude, Neiman-Marcus, or Wal-Mart?

If you look at it globally, Sam Walton probably deserved a posthumous Nobel.

Dr.,I agree that Barr is an opportunist. But the people who want not tax and no govt., in my mind, are anarchists. Not libertarians. I've started reading a lot of them online. One thing they don't understand: just based on personality, if we ever devolve into anarchy, the anarchists will be the first people propped against a wall and shot.

To clarify, my post about Russ Verney's remark about Libertarians was more an observation about the cynicism with which he and (presumably) the new candidate view the Libertarian Party than a statement on the LP's philosophy.

Of course, hijacking a political party to serve your own purposes never takes place in either of the two majority parties, does it?

thanks WS, and yes I'd noticed the error - which was why I'd joked about it being Freudian ;)What you just said is exactly my view too (regardless of whether they're the first to be dealt with). A couple of months ago I spent weeks arguing with a couple of very bright and young self-proclaimed anarchists on the von Mises blogsite - trying to bring their fallacious views of what's possible back to their fundamental assumptions, and thus exposing their inherent contradictions. Alas, to no avail (and when I got to such a simple level of first principles for them to freely respond to, I found it curious that the site's maintenance stepped in to rearrange things so that the postings were rescrambled, then removed, and finally my ID didn't work any more ... hmm, think I got the message? The irony being that they would be the first to profess being against censorship).

a point of clarification, now that I've had some java to help think - I'm not saying they changed their site solely or even mainly because of my postings, of course ... for there are a slew of controversial topics and remarks being made during that same time by others. But it was interesting to 'see' how they work to shut you out of the dialogue process by ignoring you totally, and by not putting in their opinions either (I invited that they please correct me if I had any misteps in either my logic or assumptions about human valuation and the dynamics of market exchange). I know enough about the Austrian school to deeply appreciate its founders - who were not anarchists at all, rather adherents of non-intervention in the market's determination of price and 'revealed preferences'. That's a far cry from these young believers in a stateless society - and I'm not sure why the blog's managers wouldn't want to help educate them away from such absurd extremist views. Cheers, Tom